Maoists kill 55 policemen in audacious pre-dawn attack

By Sujeet Kumar Mar 15, 2007, 18:20 GMT

Raipur, March 15 (IANS) Maoist guerrillas slaughtered 55 policemen early Thursday after raiding an isolated camp in Chhattisgarh state in the bloodiest of such attacks that demonstrated leftwing extremism remained a potent force ever since it erupted as a peasant rebellion four decades ago.

In a carefully planned pre-dawn onslaught, over 300 heavily armed Maoists, including women, stormed the Rani Bodali camp in Bastar, a forested region some 510 km away from the state capital, hurling grenades and petrol bombs.

Before the 74 Chhattisgarh Armed Police (CAP) personnel and Special Police Officers (SPOs) in the camp could react, the guerrillas broke into the complex firing away from automatic rifles, resulting in an unprecedented massacre.

'We have recovered 55 bodies from the burnt police camp. The deceased 16 CAP personnel and 39 police officers,' said R.K. Vij, inspector general of police, Bastar Range.

The audacious attack began at 2 a.m. and ended at 6.30 a.m. The Maoists escaped with a huge haul of rifles of the deceased policemen after setting fire to the supposedly secure camp.

Some policemen fired back but it was clearly a one-sided affair.

Some of the policemen's bodies were turned into booby traps by attaching live bombs to them, informed sources in Bastar town told IANS.

'More than 300 heavily-armed guerrillas, including women, took part in the attack,' a police officer told IANS.

A sombre Chhattisgarh Chief Minister Raman Singh told the state assembly that the dead included 15 CAF men and 34 SPOs, a special group of civilians who help the cops fight the Maoists. Twelve policemen were injured.

Chhattisgarh has recruited about 5,000 SPOs from tribal communities to act as spies to the police force.

The police camp was based at Bijapur, a part of Bastar region's 40,000 sq km area which serves as the never centre of the outlawed Communist Party of India-Maoist, which is active in 13 Indian states.

Police say the rebels have planted landmines in the southern tip of the state to target police and protect their hideouts. They have also set up dozens of war training centres and explosives manufacturing units in Abujhmad in Bastar where policemen hardly dare enter.

Hundreds of police and Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel who reached the massacre site over five hours later could not make much headway in the hunt for the guerrillas due to fears of sneak attacks. Even in normal days the men in khaki do not venture out of their camps after sunset.

'We can't go blindly in forests in search of attackers,' said a CRPF commander. He said the rebels had fled towards the Abujhmad forested belt.

Thursday attack has left the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government red faced. Raman Singh said he would urge the central government to launch an all out war against Maoists to dismantle their terror infrastructure.

'It's too much. The rebels have challenged the government's authority. Now we have to finish them off,' Raman Singh told IANS.

Home Minister Ramvichar Netam, who is under attack from almost everyone, sounded disgusted.

'The extremists cannot tame the government, they have no guts to fight directly with security forces. Is it a heroic act to kill someone under darkness and then flee into forest?' Netam asked while speaking to IANS.

Police credited the audacity to the Communist Party of India-Maoist, which came up in 2003 following a merger of the Maoist Communist Centre (MCC) and People's War Group (PWG).

Bastar - a forested area largely inhabited by tribals - has been one of the oldest hubs of the Maoist movement in the country since it erupted in West Bengal's Naxalbari village in May 1967 and quickly spread to several states.

Some Maoists active in Bastar have been underground for almost a quarter century, living with the dream of bringing about an armed revolution in India.

Predictably, the Congress party came down hard on the government.

'The law and order situation is beyond the government's control. The BJP (government) should resign on moral grounds,' a Congress leader said, as party legislators walked out of the state assembly. 'Maoists have virtually taken control of interior areas.'

The government has deployed 80 battalions of police forces in Bastar. New Delhi had sent an additional 11 battalions of Central Reserve Police Force besides one Mizo and one Nagaland Armed Police (NAP) battalions.

© 2007 Indo-Asian News Service